I am in the throws of restoring a 62 samba and have aspirations to race it down the 1/4 stretch at Santa Pod. the bus wont be restored for at least another 8 months yet which gives me time to start thinking about a performance engine and ancillaries. Problem is I have no clue where to start or what I am looking for? I have no idea about which places selling performance blocks are good or whether they offer sub standard machined parts. Essentially I am looking for recommendations about providers of a high performance engines and tuning specialists that might be able to make my bus MEAN!

Jmr if your a buzzcocks fan! I am! Also the master Laurie petit. You pays yer money and takes yer choice, but jims right, youll do well with these people and get the aftercare. US would be awkward and costly.

Hey guys thanks very much for the pointers. Had a look at stateside's website but either my browser is not working properly or their website is bust. JMR looks really good, I'll get in touch with them tomorrow and see what they have to say. Assume all these places both provide the engines and fit/ tune for top performance do they?

Ok thanks VWJim, that's good to know. Yes Isle of Harris would not be logistically viable for fitment. Reckon on spending about £8k up on the block. Is that ballpark or am I in La la land for that money?

Blatant plug, but I have an unassembled Raby engine kit up for sale in the classifieds that meets your performance and price requirements, ready to be put together, with all the hard work done by the Maestro himself. A 2270cc Type 4 good for 165 bhp.

I'm selling it unassembled as then the purchaser can see exactly what he is buying and the quality of the parts provided.

This was destined for my 64 to get me into BWA before I turned to the dark side and bought a new T5 California!

Furcifer wrote:Ok thanks VWJim, that's good to know. Yes Isle of Harris would not be logistically viable for fitment. Reckon on spending about £8k up on the block. Is that ballpark or am I in La la land for that money?

That's a sensible figure to get a block built up but don't forget to factor in other bits that may also need upgrading, such as, gearbox (you're not going to rag a 140bhp+ bus up the strip many times on a stock box), brakes (makes sense to be able to stop!), steering (just wait till you see what a standard steering box is like at 100mph ).

Ian is a top bloke, open and honest about every aspect of the build, as Jim mentioned he won't build an engine without fitting it - this is where a lot of issues happen.
He builds most of the engines for the Outlaw Flat Four members and there will be 2 of his engines appearing is buses real soon that are going to be Epic! (roll on EBI )

Whomever you use (of any worth) will have a waiting list, so be prepared for that.